Does network care prolong work absences?

We used data on 120,000 workers with occupational injuries occurring in California, Connecticut, and Texas to analyze the effects of healthcare networks on postinjury durations of work absence. Controlling for selection and unobserved heterogeneity, work absences are shorter, all else equal, for network cases than for non-network cases. The shorter durations could reduce lost productivity by more than $3.8 million (a 9% reduction in work loss days for non-network cases) if network care were extended to the non-network cases in our sample.